When Hal Roach had his great success with the "Our Gang" series, other producers waited a couple of years. When the series not only stayed around, but prospered mightily, several other firms tried to imitate it. They failed. I attribute this to the producer-director Robert McGowan (not his nephew Bob, who directed some of the dire dregs of the series the 1940s), who had the unlikely knack of figuring out how to let kids visibly be kids. Even in the more fantastic ones in which they got to play with real railroads, they look like kids playing.
With this series, produced by Joe Rock for Bray, however, the kids are clearly acting and only Peaches Jackson seems comfortable. The others are all clearly in costume, like the rich kid in the Fauntleroy suit, or the Irish kid who grimaces a lot. It's an episode in which the poorer kids with the jalopy take on the rich kid in the limousine, with some gags that might have worked with adult actors -- in fact, I've seen several comedies in which they do work -- but in this version, the point is that it's kids who are doing this. That reduces this comedy to a freak show, or a waltzing bear: the point is not how well they do it, but that they do it at all.
This is one of the silent films repatriated from New Zealand and is available on the National Film Preservation site in a beautiful print. It's a pity the film isn't of the same quality as the transfer.
